Before Lunch

by Angela Thirkell

  ‘How far did you really walk, Mr Cameron?’ said Denis. ‘Was it ten miles?’

  ‘When your uncle said that we left Laverings at three and got to Staple Park before six, he was speaking the truth,’ said Mr Cameron. ‘But he didn’t say that we got to Pooker’s Piece at half-past three and that he talked to old Margett – notice that I don’t say with old Margett – till half-past four, or that we stopped at the Beliers Arms at a quarter to five for a soft drink, where Mr Middleton harangued the soft drinking public on the iniquity of building on Pooker’s Piece. I should say four miles at the very outside.’

  ‘Uncle Jack is a bit of a windbag,’ said Daphne. ‘I sometimes can’t think how Catherine sticks it.’

  ‘She is very fond of him, you know,’ said Mr Cameron.

  ‘Of course she is,’ said Daphne. ‘I mean when people are married to each other they have to be, unless they are getting divorced or something. Oh, let’s hurry up. I can hear the six-twenty hooting before the viaduct and we’ll be in time to see it go over. I love that.’

  She quickened her pace, followed by her companions, and in a very short time they had reached the top of a hill where some cows were grazing. In front of them lay the valley of the river Woolram, spanned at this point by a handsome viaduct, the work of Brunel. Even as they looked a toy train came puffing out of Mr Palmer’s woods on the left, puffed across the viaduct and ran into the cutting on Lord Bond’s property on the right. Daphne drew a deep sigh of pleasure.

  ‘I adore looking at that train,’ she said. ‘Come on.’

  ‘I’m coming,’ said Denis, who had been leaning against a tree, surveying the panorama.

  Daphne looked at him with a peculiar expression that Mr Cameron did not understand. They continued their walk at a slower pace and Mr Cameron thought that Daphne was not in her usual spirits. In fact she almost snapped at him once or twice and so much did this prey on his spirits that he dressed for dinner in a very low frame of mind and did not trouble to set Mr Middleton right when he boasted again of the long tramp they had taken that afternoon. Later in the evening Mrs Middleton said she must take a scarf that her sister-in-law had left in the car over to the White House, so Mr Cameron said he would come with her. They found Mrs Stonor and Daphne playing six pack bezique.

  ‘How nice of you, Catherine,’ said Mrs Stonor as soon as she saw the scarf. ‘I knew my scarf must be somewhere, because I had it when I started and when I got back it wasn’t there. Poor Denis was so tired that I sent him to bed and made him have his dinner there. Luckily it is Palfrey’s Sunday out, so I was able to take his dinner up without offending her. Do come up and see him, Catherine. He can never sleep when he is overtired and company is a good distraction. Mr Cameron, do you play bezique? If you do you could finish the game with Daphne. I never like to leave a game unfinished. Not because of superstition, because I really don’t think there is any special superstition about it, but it seems so untidy and one always hopes one might have won.’

  Mr Cameron sat down at the card table, when Daphne startled him by picking up all her cards and banging them down on the table in a heap, saying defiantly that she was a beast. On being questioned she said that anyone who wasn’t a beast and also a born fool would have seen that to make Denis hurry up the hill in the heat was an idiotic thing to do and she wished she were dead. Mr Cameron, trying to comfort her, said it was just as much his fault, but Daphne, scorning such an easy sop to conscience, said Rubbish.

  ‘You didn’t know,’ she went on, banging violently at each eye with her handkerchief rolled into a tight ball, and then glaring at Mr Cameron. ‘It wasn’t your fault a bit. Denis always gets knocked out with the heat and I was an idiot to make him hurry. Now he’ll be on Lilian’s hands for a couple of days, while I do Lady Bond’s silly invitations. I wish I was dead and everyone was dead.’

  ‘Not everyone,’ said Mr Cameron, as he sorted the cards and put them neatly into their box.

  ‘Well, pretty well everyone,’ said Daphne with less heat.

  ‘I’ll tell you what,’ said Mr Cameron. ‘If Mrs Stonor sees you have been crying it will be very upsetting for her on the top of Denis being unwell.’

  Daphne said she knew that, and anyway she hadn’t been crying.

  ‘So,’ said Mr Cameron, ignoring this untruthful remark, ‘we had better fake the score for the game we didn’t finish and put a good appearance on things. Who would have won, do you think?’

  Daphne looked at him with admiration.

  ‘You do have good ideas,’ she said, ‘and I was a beast not to think of it. Lilian was seven hundred and fifty ahead of me, so let’s say she won.’

  ‘Wouldn’t she feel more comfortable if you won?’ asked Mr Cameron.

  ‘Yes, she would be more comfortable, but she’d be a bit suspicious, because I never do win. Give me the markers and I’ll fix it.’

  In this agreeable task of forgery Daphne forgot that she was a beast and confided in Mr Cameron that she liked doing secretary work, but would much rather live in the country and have a cottage and keep pigs, but she couldn’t possibly do that because if she and Denis and Lilian all lived together it was fairly easy, but none of them could really afford to live alone. She then enquired where Mr Cameron lived and on hearing that it was the Temple said it must be awful to live there, which depressed Mr Cameron a good deal.

  ‘Of course,’ said he, after a short silence during which he had been following his own train of thought, ‘your uncle manages to have his home in the country and do his work in London. It might be possible.’

  ‘But Uncle Jack’s quite different,’ said Daphne. ‘I mean he earns pots of money and Catherine is rather rich herself. We’ll have to stick to London.’

  ‘I wasn’t thinking so much of you,’ said Mr Cameron thoughtfully.

  ‘Who of then?’ said Daphne. ‘We weren’t talking about anyone else.’

  Mr Cameron suddenly realized that he couldn’t easily explain that he was thinking how to organize his own life so that anyone who happened to be married to him could live in the country while he went up to town every day, but luckily Mrs Middleton and Mrs Stonor came downstairs. Mrs Stonor was much happier about Denis and said he was all the better for Catherine’s visit.

  ‘He really is getting stronger,’ she said as she accompanied her guests to the gate. ‘Dr Hammond always said he would outgrow his delicacy and I believe he will. If only he could get away on his own. I do wish he could get a job and Daphne would marry someone very very nice, and then I should feel comfortable.’

  ‘And what about you?’ said Mrs Middleton very affectionately. ‘Wouldn’t you be lonely?’

  ‘Oh, I’d be all right,’ said Mrs Stonor vaguely. ‘I might have a very small flat somewhere and take up my painting again. I don’t seem to have had time to do any for years. Thank you so much for bringing the scarf, Catherine. I simply knew it must be somewhere, because of starting with it and then not having it when I got back. Good night, Mr Cameron. Do come again whenever you are down here. Denis likes you so much. I must see if Palfrey remembered to take the back door key, otherwise I’ll have to sit up for her, but I don’t suppose she’ll be late.’

  Mrs Middleton and Mr Cameron walked for a few moments in the garden before they went in.

  ‘That was a tremendous compliment that Lilian paid you,’ said Mrs Middleton. ‘She makes Denis a kind of touchstone for her friends; not a bad one.’

  ‘He is a very nice boy,’ said Mr Cameron, ‘but I thought he was too much wrapped up in himself and his music to notice people.’

  ‘I think he sees an enormous amount without looking,’ said Mrs Middleton. ‘Some kind of sixth sense. At any rate you have a passport to Lilian’s heart now. Let’s go in and talk to Jack. By the way did you and he really go ten miles on this boiling day?’

  ‘Not more than four at the outside,’ said Mr Cameron. ‘But I didn’t think it worth mentioning at the Bonds’.’

  By now they had reached the library door
and the light shone on Mrs Middleton’s face as she threw him a look of grateful understanding, and they went in.

  5

  Daphne goes to Work

  On Monday morning Mr Cameron went back to town without seeing any of the Stonors. Denis had quite recovered from the effects of the heat and began work again on the score of his ballet, while Daphne pumped her bicycle tyres and rode over to Staple Park. Leaving her bicycle at the foot of the stone steps she rang the bell.

  ‘I say,’ she said when a footman appeared, ‘do you think I could leave my bicycle there, or will someone pinch it?’

  The footman thought he had better ask Mr Spencer and shortly returned with that official who looked at her bicycle as if it were a new and loathsome species of beetle and told the footman to wheel it into the bottle room. The footman went down the steps and Daphne followed the butler across the marble hall.

  ‘What’s the bottle room?’ she asked.

  ‘The room where the empties is kept, miss,’ said Spencer. ‘Being on the ground level, Charles can wheel your bike in there with no exertion and will bring it round for you when required. Miss Stonor, my lady,’ he said, opening a door in the dark centre hall.

  Lady Bond’s sitting-room was a pleasant room at a corner of the house, furnished with bright uninteresting chintzes. Her ladyship in another useful coat and skirt was walking up and down smoking. ‘Good morning, Miss Stonor,’ she said. ‘Would you like a glass of milk before starting work, or some biscuits?’

  Daphne thanked her and said she never ate anything in the morning.

  ‘Quite right,’ said Lady Bond approvingly. ‘But Miss Starter has such a habit of glasses of milk at odd hours that one gets into the way of expecting it. You will be glad to hear that the man at Winter Overcotes whom Mrs Middleton recommended can supply Kornog. I think it is all rubbish myself, but Miss Starter has a very delicate digestion and having no other occupation since Princess Louisa Christina died she thinks a great deal about it. Now, if you will sit at that table I will dictate a list of names for the drawing-room meeting and a circular letter to accompany each invitation.’

  This she did in a certain and masterful way that Daphne could not but admire. When she had finished she said she had to go and see the head gardener and would be back in an hour. Miss Stonor would find paper, carbons and everything necessary on the table where the typewriter was. Daphne took the cover off the machine and made a face at it as she recognized a very old out-of-date model, but she had to make the best of it, so she sat down and began her work. After some time the door opened. Daphne who was wrestling rather angrily with the typewriter didn’t look up.

  ‘Mother,’ said a voice, adding, ‘Oh, it’s you.’

  Daphne looked up and saw young Mr Bond.

  ‘Hullo,’ he said, ‘are you secretarying?’

  ‘As far as this machine will let me,’ said Daphne. ‘I’m going to tell your mother she ought to have a new one.’

  ‘I’d like to see my stenographer’s face in the New York office if anyone gave her a machine like that,’ said young Mr Bond, examining the gigantic and cumbersome superstructure with awe. ‘Are you staying to lunch?’

  Daphne said she was.

  ‘All right,’ said young Mr Bond, ‘I was going to cut lunch to avoid the Starter, but now I shan’t.’

  ‘O.K.,’ said Daphne. ‘Oh, damn this machine.’

  ‘When you see me at lunch, please give a start of surprise,’ said young Mr Bond and left the room.

  When Lady Bond got back Daphne handed her a pile of envelopes correctly addressed, each containing a letter explaining the object of the drawing-room meeting and an invitation card. Lady Bond approved and Daphne asked where she would find stamps.

  ‘Oh, Spencer stamps all the letters,’ said Lady Bond. ‘And now I want to discuss with you a letter to the local newspaper and one to our M.P.’

  Daphne opened her shorthand book and laid it on the table.

  ‘Before I start taking down the letters, I’d better tell you that this machine is hopeless,’ she said kindly. ‘I don’t suppose you use it yourself so you couldn’t know. It must be a pre-war model and it can’t have been cleaned since it left the works.’

  ‘Is it really as bad as that?’ asked Lady Bond, examining the typewriter, about which she obviously knew nothing. ‘I can’t think why Miss Knowles, my secretary, never mentioned it.’

  ‘I expect she hadn’t the nerve,’ said Daphne. ‘But I’m sure she’d be awfully grateful and work twice as fast if you got her a new one.’

  ‘Well, I’ll ask my son about it,’ said Lady Bond. ‘He knows all about offices. You were right to mention it.’

  The rest of the morning passed quickly and Daphne found she enjoyed working with Lady Bond, who wasted no time and knew exactly what she wanted to say. When they went in to lunch Miss Starter, who was measuring her medicine at the sideboard, told Daphne how delighted she was to find that Kornog bread was procurable.

  ‘Of course,’ she said, as she took her place at the table, ‘I could have written to London for it, but it all takes time and I certainly could not have got a loaf before Wednesday, whereas now, thanks to your prompt action, Lucasta, I shall have it this afternoon. Will you thank your aunt very much, Miss Stonor, for her kind help.’

  ‘Well, she’s really not an aunt at all,’ said Daphne. ‘She only married my stepmother’s brother. But I’m awfully fond of her.’

  Although Daphne did not really much care whether young Mr Bond came in to lunch or not, she felt he needn’t have made such a parade of secrecy over something that he was going to forget at once. The dining-room door opened and she looked up, but it was Spencer, who bending over Miss Starter’s chair said confidentially, ‘I thought you would be glad to know, miss, that your dietetic loaf is come. I have given instructions for your usual slice, lightly toasted, to be brought to you immediately.’

  He had hardly finished speaking when a footman came in with a small silver toast rack containing a slice of Kornog, lightly toasted and cut into four small triangles. This he placed beside Miss Starter.

  ‘Thank you so much,’ said Miss Starter. ‘Oh, but Spencer, they have cut off the crusts again. I did ask for the crusts to be left on, as my doctor says half the good lies in the crusts.’

  Spencer said deferentially that he would Let Them Know about it, but with a wealth of implication that froze Daphne’s blood. He then signed to the footman to remove the toast rack, but just as that underling was carrying it away young Mr Bond came in by the service door and nearly cannoned into him.

  ‘What have you, Charles?’ he said. ‘Toast? I adore toast. You didn’t think to see me, Miss Starter,’ he continued, dangling the toast rack from one finger. ‘I found I wasn’t out to lunch after all, so I came back through the kitchen, and Mrs Alcock said there was cold salmon so here I am. How do you do, Miss Stonor. Have some toast.’

  ‘Don’t eat that, C.W.,’ said Miss Starter imploringly.

  ‘Why not?’ asked young Mr Bond, putting about four ounces of butter on one of the small triangles and munching it. ‘No, Spencer, no macaroni, it’s too hot. Just the salmon and rather a lot of it, especially if there’s one of those bits that have what one might call a little salmon fat between the flesh and the skin. Is it poisoned, Miss Starter?’

  ‘The crusts have been cut off,’ said Miss Starter.

  ‘I’m all in favour of that,’ said young Mr Bond, carrying another butter-laden triangle to his mouth. ‘I always give my crusts to the dogs since I got too old to hide them under the rim of the nursery tea-tray.’

  ‘But practically the whole dietetic value lies in the crusts,’ the guest persisted. ‘Besides, toast and salmon entirely neutralize each other. That is why I am not having any. Just the salad.’

  ‘It seems awful waste to have salmon if one doesn’t eat it,’ said Daphne, in whose life Scotch salmon did not occur very frequently.

  ‘Well, I can neutralize anything,’ said young Mr Bond with fine
want of logic. ‘Cider please, Charles.’

  ‘That is really enough, C.W.,’ said his mother. ‘And I want your advice. Miss Stonor says the typewriter is not in very good condition.’

  ‘I’ve always wondered how poor old Knowles stood it,’ said young Mr Bond, taking an enormous helping of Charlotte Russe and emptying the cream jug over it. ‘All right, mother, this isn’t greedy: it’s only taking what you ladies have left. That typewriter must have been left over from the year grandfather got his peerage. I believe he bought one to answer the congratulations.’

  ‘Then I had better order a new one,’ said her ladyship, ‘and I shall scold Miss Knowles for not having mentioned it before.’

  ‘I don’t suppose she dared,’ said young Mr Bond. ‘I’ll choose you one and have it sent down. Which machine do you use, Miss Stonor?’